{"id":66336,"date":"2025-09-15T22:35:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-15T22:35:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/66336\/"},"modified":"2025-09-15T22:35:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-15T22:35:10","slug":"gareth-sheridan-is-first-independent-candidate-to-be-nominated-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/66336\/","title":{"rendered":"Gareth Sheridan is first Independent candidate to be nominated \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Businessman Gareth Sheridan<\/a> has become the first Independent candidate to secure a local authority\u2019s nomination to contest the presidential election<\/a>. <\/p>\n

However, the path for candidates seeking to win the required four endorsements from county and city councils has greatly narrowed after the \u201cSuper Monday\u201d round of meetings. <\/p>\n

Councillors on a number of local authorities, including Roscommon, Longford, Cork City, Galway City and Dublin City<\/a>, opted not to nominate anyone.<\/p>\n

Mr Sheridan received a nomination from Kerry County Council<\/a> but lost out in Co Laois, where councillors voted against helping him to enter the race to succeed President Michael D Higgins<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, former mixed martial arts champion Conor McGregor<\/a> said on Monday he was ending his campaign to contest the election, claiming the process is \u201cfixed\u201d.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Conor McGregor withdraws bid for nomination to contest presidential electionOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

He claimed the eligibility rules in Ireland\u2019s \u201coutdated Constitution\u201d were a \u201cstraitjacket\u201d that prevented a \u201ctrue democratic presidential election being contested\u201d.<\/p>\n

He had been expected to address last night\u2019s special Dublin City Council meeting along with other prospective candidates.<\/p>\n

Conservative campaigner Maria Steen told the meeting there would be no \u201ctruly independent\u201d candidate on the ballot paper unless councils or Oireachtas members gave someone a chance. She said she was not asking councillors to vote for her in the election or to \u201cendorse every view point\u201d, but that she believed she could be a \u201cunifying president\u201d. <\/p>\n

\"MariaMaria Steen arriving at Dublin City Hall on Monday evening. Photograph: Nick Bradshaw <\/p>\n

Ms Steen is said to be halfway to securing support from the required 20 Oireachtas members to contest the election.<\/p>\n

Independent Minister of State Se\u00e1n Canney on Mondaysuggested he would not be adding his name to the list, reiterating his support for Fine Gael candidate Heather Humphreys when asked if he might nominate Ms Steen.<\/p>\n

In relation to what other Government supporting Independents might do, Mr Canney told Virgin Media Television: \u201cWe don\u2019t have any whip \u2013 and we may agree on certain things \u2013 but what people will do in terms of nominations for presidency, it\u2019s up to each individual.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fianna F\u00e1il<\/a> candidate Jim Gavin<\/a> told reporters at the party\u2019s think-in in Cork that the Government\u2019s performance on housing<\/a> \u201cis not good enough yet\u201d and needs to improve.<\/p>\n

He said he would, if elected, speak out \u201cwithout fear or favour\u201d on issues such as housing and seek to follow the example of Mr Higgins, but added that he was aware of the constitutional restraints of the role. <\/p>\n

\"JimJim Gavin speaks to the media outside Leinster House on September 9th. Photograph: Stephen Collins\/Collins <\/p>\n

Earlier, Kerry County Council became the first local authority to nominate a candidate. Cllr Niall O\u2019Callaghan said he was proposing Mr Sheridan, describing him as a deserving candidate \u2013 a young person experienced in business and life. The nomination was seconded by Cllr Martin Grady, who said Mr Sheridan was taking the role of president seriously and had come across well in his presentation to councillors last week.<\/p>\n

No vote was taken on Mr Sheridan specifically as the council had previously decided it would approve a nominated candidate.<\/p>\n

A Sheridan campaign source insisted he is \u201cstill in the mix\u201d to secure the backing of four local authorities and that he is \u201cin pole position\u201d among the Independent hopefuls.<\/p>\n

He is expected at Tipperary County Council\u2019s meeting on Tuesday along with several others. Fine Gael\u2019s councillors in Tipperary will reportedly defy instructions from party headquarters to vote against Independents seeking to enter the race. <\/p>\n

Fine Gael\u2019s group leader in Tipperary, Cllr Willie Kennedy, said they would decide this morning \u201cas a group\u201d what to do. <\/p>\n

He appeared to play down the prospect of any widespread rebellion in the party. He said Tipperary Fine Gael\u2019s councillors will \u201cnot necessarily\u201d follow the party\u2019s instructions but also that they \u201cprobably won\u2019t be too far from it\u201d.<\/p>\n

He said the councillors wanted to wait to hear from the candidates. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll wait and see. It\u2019s good manners to at least listen to people.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Businessman Gareth Sheridan has become the first Independent candidate to secure a local authority\u2019s nomination to contest the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":66337,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[9,10,4003,784,18,13,14,25,6,19,17,19487,9824,11,12,15,16,30253,1874,5,59,7,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-66336","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-conor-mcgregor","11":"tag-dublin-city-council","12":"tag-eire","13":"tag-featured-news","14":"tag-featurednews","15":"tag-gareth-sheridan","16":"tag-headlines","17":"tag-ie","18":"tag-ireland","19":"tag-jim-gavin","20":"tag-kerry-county-council","21":"tag-latest-news","22":"tag-latestnews","23":"tag-main-news","24":"tag-mainnews","25":"tag-maria-steen","26":"tag-michael-d-higgins","27":"tag-news","28":"tag-presidential-election","29":"tag-top-stories","30":"tag-topstories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66336","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66336"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66336\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}